Terry McCrann: Clive Palmer has a right to challenge WA government in court
How dare the WA government, with implied approval from the federal government, legislate to deny Clive Palmer his right to seek and win damages against the state of Western Australia, writes Terry McCrann.
Terry McCrann
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It’s a challenging question: which is the more disgraceful?
The utterly unprecedented move by the WA Labor government to steal what it believes is close to $30bn dollars from Clive Palmer? In fact, in reality, it would be at most more like $4bn to $5bn — revealing a government that is both disgraceful and stupid.
Or the deafening silence from the Prime Minister and Treasurer, supposedly the overall national guardians of good and ethical governance in Australia; and the duo most responsible for maintaining our first-class sovereign risk profile, so pervasively critical to the best interests of the nation and all 25 million of us.
To restate: the WA Labor government, with the full support of the Liberal opposition — in its case, going one “better” as it’s added cringing pusillanimity to the basic disgrace/stupid mix — has legislated to ban Palmer from winning his case for damages against the state. The facts don’t matter. The law doesn’t matter. One side in a dispute has the power to legislate that it can’t lose and it has done exactly that.
The only justification for the move is that losing would cost the state too much. There’s been only the most cursory attempt to justify the extraordinary move on the basis of merit: that Palmer was really wrong and the state was really right. No, it’ll cost too much.
Further, the WA state government has made its move right in the middle of an arbitration process before a former High Court judge — a process which it, the government, wanted. It will be interesting to see what the judge, Michael McHugh, thinks — and indeed, feels — about that.
Last week an interesting commentary appeared in the Fin Review by a “contributor”, John Quigley.
It argued that the anti-Palmer legislation, while “extraordinary and unprecedented for WA”, was based “on a solid foundation of case law and precedent”.
Those reading through to a footnote at the end would have discovered that the “contributor” was also the WA Attorney-General. How instructive if hardly novel: a politician opining that his own legislation was valid and even great!
Most of the article argued the bleeding obvious: while the federal government cannot expropriate property without providing “just” compensation, there is no such protection against state governments.
Yes, Mr Quigley, a state government can legislate to steal your property. But the question of whether it should so legislate is clearly a concept that has never entered his mind.
he right of the WA government to do what it has done, but whether it will win in the particular context of this case and the way it has gone about what it has done, are two very different things. On the latter, for instance, Quigley referenced a state’s right to steal — to stress, my word not his — even in the context of pending litigation; in this case the litigation is not pending, it’s actually happening.
But what makes the whole exercise thoroughly disgusting are the other things the legislation does, that take it deep into 17th century Star Chamber territory. It deprives any and every one and especially of course Palmer of the basic rights of natural justice.
Who would have thought we’d see that in legislation in Australia in 2020? Who would have thought we’d see a PM and Treasurer endorsing it by their silence?
It excludes any and every thing in relation to the dispute from the Freedom of Information laws. The media, the general public, everyone, are banned from even daring to find the truth of what actually happened, literally forever.
Most preposterously of all, it imposes on Palmer the obligation to pay the state’s bills if he — somehow, goodness knows how — ended up winning.
None of this made it into Quigley’s “contribution” in the Fin Review; far less, obviously, was any attempt made to justify these even more outrageous abuses of state power, overlaid on the core outrage.
And which just might be a catastrophic blunder on the part of a government that is so collectively stupid as well as so disgraceful.
You now would almost like to see Palmer win, just to see how Quigley and Premier Mark McGowan set about explaining that outcome and their failed behaviour.
In that circumstance, no doubt in Canberra, an always malleable PM would be praising the reassertion of the rule of law.
TWIGGY FLOATS HIGH, AND HOW
How do I break this gently to the team over at the Macrobusiness commentary website?
Their David Llewellyn-Smith has been opining that (Andrew) Twiggy Forrest and Gina Rinehart “would be wise to consider a float of their respective iron ore businesses”.
Ur, well, actually, David, one of the two, Twiggy, has not only “considered” doing that, he has long since actually done it.
Let me introduce you to an ASX publicly-listed company called Fortescue, in which Twiggy’s iron ore business has been well and truly “floated” since 2003.
In the chaotically confused way of much of the Macrobusiness commentary, I think he meant to write that Twiggy should consider selling down his $21.5bn stake in Fortescue; that he should cash in while the price (of the underlying iron ore) was high.
Hmm: actually, buying more of Fortescue this year rather than selling has worked rather well for Twiggy.
In February, he spent $242m buying an extra chunk of Fortescue; he’s now ahead $184m on that parcel alone — and a cool $9bn-plus on his total holding — in just six months.
Originally published as Terry McCrann: Clive Palmer has a right to challenge WA government in court